The Purpose of this Blog

Aside from the usual stuff I was unprepared for when I had my first child, I was more surprised by the culture among the mothers I met. No one tells you that while you are adjusting to having a new little person in your life that you also have to navigate the murky social waters of moms and motherhood.

I was in a unique position with my first child, in that my husband was deployed, leaving me with a six-month-old. As a “single” parent, I depended more on my network of mothers for support than I would have if my husband had been home.

I should also mention that I am more of an introvert. Sure, I do pretty well socially, but it is more effort for me than for a natural people-person. When my husband left, I knew that getting out more was healthy for both my child and me.

One of my dear friends from college, May, had a baby nine months older than mine and was well into the baby social scene. She invited me to join a weekly playgroup with five other moms with similarly-aged babies. They met at a Gymboree class and formed a little outside group of their own. (for more on Gymboree, see later posts…) I quickly started living for Wednesday mornings, when I could see my new mom friends and get a break from the routine. They were an invaluable resource for me and helped me get through over two years without my husband.

As I spent more time with my new friends, I came to identify their personality types. I should mention that I moved around quite a bit growing up and learned early that people are fall into general personality types no matter where you live or what age they are. You know the types: the bully, the cheerleader, the ringleader, etc. Yeah, everyone is different and does not neatly fall into a category, but generally, you get a feeling pretty early as to how a person functions and what his or her motivations are.

This is a helpful skill to have in life, whether in school, business or your private life. However, I have felt for several years, now that there is a massive gap in identifying these personality types in the culture of motherhood; not so much in how types of people parent, but in how these types manifest themselves in the motherhood social groups. How people socialize as parents, and among other parents, is very different than how these same people relate in a business or social setting without children.

The purpose of this blog is to identify the different types and to give you practical tools to effectively interact with them. You will be able to adeptly deal with the good, the bad, and the ugly. In doing so, you will be able to build better friendships and keep the peace in the wild world that is Mom Infested Waters.